As much as I may oppose SOPA, I really don't understand
Wikipedia's rationale for shutting down the site 'to raise
awareness'.

I mean, will this act make me better-understand how bad SOPA is?
All it does is to deprive me of one of my favourite pastimes:
reading about all sorts of arcane subjects ranging from the Mongol
Horde to Arctic islands to Taffy 3.

In the end, my rage is directed at Wikipedia instead of the US
Congress.

It's a bit like how some idiots in NUS thought that they could
raise environmental awareness by removing rubbish bins all over
campus.

Oh no, on the contrary it's made quite a few people I know
realise how much they've taken the freedom of information on the
internet for granted. They looked for more info for something on
google, clicked on the Wiki link without thinking (even though
they're aware of the blackout), and hey, it's not there.

I'm not one for jumping onto bandwagons, but this is what will
happen if a corporate body (media companies are the main backers)
makes a claim of copyright infringement against Wikimedia, Youtube
or Facebook and the government blocks it without trial. And they
decided to make it international because other governments (like
ours) are considering similar laws and the majority of the users
they discussed it with agreed.

I cannot say that the campaign at NUS is as effective. The trash
bins are not going to disappear just because we cut down our waste.
Wiki left a note on its website to explain its position, but did
the do-gooders at NUS do the same?

Forget that and see this disturbing exchange that purportedly
took place between the cruise ship captain and the coast guard.

I feel for the people around him.

Captain: Do you realize that it is
dark and we can't see anything?

Coast Guard: So, what do you want
to do, to go home, Schettino?! It's dark and you want to go
home?

New explaination from the captain to explain his abandoning of the
ship:

“The passengers were pouring onto
the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” he said. “I didn’t
even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the
passengers. I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an
orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree
angle, I tripped and I ended up in
one of the boats. That’s how I found myself
there.”

New explaination from the captain to explain his abandoning of the
ship:

“The passengers were pouring onto
the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” he said. “I didn’t
even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the
passengers. I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an
orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree
angle, I tripped and I ended up in
one of the boats. That’s how I found myself
there.”

he's just making it worse by trying to justify his
actions...

come to think about it, he's behaving the same way the MIW are
trying to justify their wages...

sad thing is that Lau Lee wanted the MPs to have sufficiently
high pay so that the temptation to be corrupt would not be
there...

"sufficiently high pay"

but then, along the way the "principle" was twisted to what we
see now...

the same way the politicians were tweaking the economy so that
GDP was high, damn everything.. by pulling in foreigners, building
crap the citizens won't use, increasing revenue come hell or high
water, causing a speculation boom so it can be taxed... and then
they paid themselves..

Lau Lee forgot or refused to see that greed knows no bounds...
and by introducing these things, he just attracted the greedy and
corruptable...

New explaination from the captain to explain his abandoning of the
ship:

“The passengers were pouring onto
the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” he said. “I didn’t
even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the
passengers. I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an
orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree
angle, I tripped and I ended up in
one of the boats. That’s how I found myself
there.”

it's those bloody contractors probably .... they shift the road
left and right from one day to the next and the work done on it is
often half past 6, that stretch of road is like a patch work quilt
these days .... I'm not surprised ....